UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham has acknowledged that the NCAA is returning to Chapel Hill to continue its investigation of academic fraud at UNC

The ongoing drama that is the North Carolina academic scandal took another unexpected twist Monday when athletic director Bubba Cunningham issued a statement acknowledging that the NCAA is coming back to Chapel Hill.

Here is the statement:

“The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has received a verbal notice of inquiry from the NCAA that it will reopen its 2011 examination of academic irregularities. The NCAA has determined that additional people with information and others who were previously uncooperative might now be willing to speak with the enforcement staff.

“Since 2011, the University has conducted and commissioned numerous reviews of this matter and provided the NCAA with updates. In February, the University retained former federal prosecutor Kenneth Wainstein to conduct an independent investigation and instructed him to share relevant information directly and confidentially with the NCAA.

“The University has instituted numerous academic reforms based on findings from earlier reports that can be found at http://carolinacommitment.unc.edu/ We remain committed to learning from our past so that we can move forward to building a stronger University.

“Consistent with NCAA protocols, we will have no further comment on this matter until the process is complete.”

This is obviously a major development, especially coming on the heels of former basketball star Rashad McCants’ nationally televised admission that he was steered by athletic department officials to bogus “paper classes in an effort to stay eligible.

But if you’re a fan of another school salivating over the possibility of the Tar Heels getting hammered and banners coming down from the Smith Center rafters, you might want to temper your enthusiasm.

For one thing, there’s a statute of limitations.

According to Section 32.6.3 of the NCAA Handbook: “Allegations included in a notice of allegations shall be limited to possible violations occurring not earlier than four years before the date the notice of inquiry is forwarded to the institution or the date the institution notifies (or, if earlier, should have notified) the enforcement staff of its inquiries into the matter.”

Nyang’oro

Something else to consider is the turnover that has taken place at UNC since the alleged violations took place. Gone are chancellor Holden Thorp, athletic director Dick Baddour and infamous Department of African and Afro-American Studies professor Julius Nyang’oro. In their place is a new cast of characters that can legitimately argue that they’ve instituted new policies designed to correct the problems of the past.

Though there’s a realistic chance that the NCAA could levy further sanctions on UNC, especially against sports that weren’t affected by the previous ruling, there are simply too many unknowns at this point to even speculate on how this will all shake out in the end. We don’t know who will testify, what they’ll say or what kind of evidence has been uncovered.

But the good news is that maybe this time, we’ll finally get some definitive answers and – for better or worse – all of us can finally put this mess behind us and start to move forward.

1. According the NCAA, the statue of limitations is not applicable – ” if a “pattern of willful violations” occurred before the four-year statute but continued into the last four years and/or allegations include a “blatant disregard” for the most serious of NCAA rules, including extra benefits or academic misconduct.” Since we know the academic “irregularities” go back to at least 1994 (based on their own admissions), I’d say that 20 years is a pattern of blatant disregard for academic misconduct.

2. It is not an academic scandal. It is an athletic scandal related to academic eligibility. If it were an academic scandal, the NCAA would not be involved.

3. The university “retained” Wainstein. Does that mean he is acting as their counsel in negotiations with the NCAA? We have been led to believe that he is investigating the university. But since the university is paying him, and he has been “retained”, does that mean he has been gathering information to mount a defense?

4. There is zero “NCAA protocol” that says a school can’t talk about an ongoing investigation. This is at least the third press release in the last month saying that they weren’t going to comment further. How many more times are they not going to comment?

5. Wainstein told the UNC BOG last week that he was not going to share his findings with anyone until they were complete. In the past week we have learned that he has shared information with DA Goodall, and now supposedly with the NCAA. Again, what exactly is it that he is being paid to do? Why won’t the university provide his contract identifying the scope of his work? This is a public university, funded by our tax dollars, how are they allowed to operate in such secrecy?

1) AWESOME! 2) I certainly won’t hold my breath over ANY penalties being “levied” against the most favored nation ever to exist in NCAA history. 3) No, Brett… The good news is the most embarrassing s**tstorm in the history of the most overbearing pompous a hole fanbase that ever existed in college athletics… CONTINUES!!!!!!!!! LOL…………..